Monday, August 3, 2015

Checking Your Trans Card?

As I was driving back from Cincinnati today, I began to think about the two young feminine cashiers/baggers at the grocery store Liz and I were checking out at last night. Both of them were positively falling all over themselves to be nice to me. In fact, I was almost embarrassed. This morning I thought-Wow! How times have changed. I am not however naivete enough to believe times have changed for all the transgender community-across the board. Take Cincinnati for example, it's very possible if I am visiting one of the new upscale venues in the downtown "Over the Rhine" district - a trans person or two adds to the true valued diversity of the area. But, if I head out 50 miles east of the city, I could just as easily be verbally attacked (or worse).As I have said here in Cyrsti's Condo, I work as hard as I can in an attempt to garner as much "passing privilege" as possible. Number one, why wouldn't I and number two, I certainly may need it!Perhaps you have caught the story of a transgender woman finally being tied in with violence in a women's restroom. The problem is - she was attacked by a cis man who followed her into the restroom. That's exactly what we all need, some guy checking out our trans cards and then deciding to beat us up-in the women's room. I know the feeling. In fact, I have a very close genetic friend Min, who has ran restroom "protection" for me in a few situations. (In addition to Liz of course.)This post though, is not about rest room privilege at all. It is however about the most powerful trans card of all-your personality. More on that next.